FIFA 2008 News

Yesterday, HEXUS.gaming attended an EA event for the upcoming football title, UEFA Euro 2008 in which we had a chance to play the game in some depth and sit down with lead producer, Simon Humber to ask him some probing questions.

We’ll have an in-depth review of the game early next week, but in the meantime check out the interview in which we find out what has got Simon ‘Umber’ Humber ‘hot under the collar’ and discover how exactly EA plan to ignite footballing passions in the UK, following the elimination of our beloved Nation.

HEXUS: When England were knocked out of the European Championships was there a moment when you thought “Oh God, who in the UK is going to buy this game now?”

Simon There was definitely a moment like that. We watched the Russia game early one morning at the offices and we took the lead early and couldn’t believe what happened in the second half. But, there’s part of the market that cares about England being in the tournament, but there’s a more significant part of the market that just wants to play the best football game. Euro 08 is released half way between FIFA 08 and FIFA 09 and when the best football game on the market is sitting on the shelf, why wouldn’t you go and pick it up? Why carry on playing FIFA 08 or PES when you could be playing something that’s better?

HEXUS: One of the cool new features this year is interactive celebrations. How many different types of celebration will there be and will you be able to execute trademark celebrations, such as Peter Crouch’s ‘robot-dance’ or Lua-Lua ‘flips’?

Simon There are two types of celebration. When you put the ball in the net you retain control of your player so you can run around the pitch. As you’re doing that there are around 14 different types of celebration, from a simple Shearer-style arm raise to holding your hand up to your ear.

HEXUS: Can I put my T-shirt over my head or dive into the crowd?

Simon We’re a few years away from that I think. You have control of your player and as long as your team-mates don’t catch you and you stay within the confines of the pitch you then get to do an ending move. So anytime during the 10 seconds spell when you celebrate you can trigger one of these moves. Most of them involve using the right stick and the shoulder button and there’s about 25 different combinations, ranging from simply going down on your knees, to sliding on your chest, up to the acrobatic back-flips. You have to press the ‘X’ or the ‘A’ button at the right time to land it ,other wise you just fall on your arse and look a bit stupid.

HEXUS: Can you tell us more about ‘Captain Your Country’ mode? I understand you can play with three friends on the same team, but you also compete with each other for captaincy. How does this work?

Simon It’s an interesting dynamic. There will be four people playing in this mode, regardless of whether its friends or AI and you can choose any of the players on the pitch or create your own player.

If you create a player he gets his own snapshot and a commentary name which you can attach to it. We’ve actually recorded some of the most popular surnames so you’ll hear these during the match. They messed mine up though, it should be ‘Humber’ but Clive Tyldesley pronounces it ‘Umber’, someone’s going to suffer for that!

You get this interesting dynamic between playing for yourself and also playing for your country. So, during the game there’s a real time match rating on the screen. Each time you do something good, a good pass or a good shot for example, your rating goes up, but each time you give the ball away your rating goes down. So the manager looks at these ratings and works out who is going to be the captain for the next match.

You begin the mode in the ‘B’ team regardless, then you need to go up levels, there are 8 levels in total. So you go from a International ‘B’ friendly to a qualifier, then you might get selected for the finals, and so on. So at any time one of the four might be the captain.

It’s similar to the capture the flag mechanic in first person shooters. You’re trying to capture the flag, but you’re also trying to make sure that your team wins. We had a game once where we were winning 3-0 and one of the guys went clean through on goal, one-on-one with the keeper. If he had scored that goal we knew he was going to get a higher rating and probably take the captaincy, so we just clipped his heel, sent him flying. Okay, so it’s strictly football, but it’s within the confines of the game mechanic.

HEXUS: How will the player rating system affect performance on the pitch and what parameters are involved in determining whether your rating goes up or down?

Simon There are a massive number of parameters. There are some linked to the team, but it’s mostly about the player. There’s a big dependency on where the action actually takes place and your positioning on the field. So for instance, if you give the ball away in your own third, there’s a much bigger penalty than if you give the ball away in their final third. You can’t just run around all over the pitch like a madman as you’re not holding your position. We had to think about it carefully and for instance if you’re playing as full-back you might get up with the strikers and score a hat-trick, but that’s not a good performance as a full-back, so you get penalized for playing out of position. So, central defenders and fullbacks, wide midfielders and central midfielders and wingers and strikers all have their own version of the ratings system.

HEXUS: I understand you’ve also tweaked the penalty kick system. What’s changed?

Simon The camera has been changed slightly and makes the goal look a lot closer [than FIFA 08]. You can move goalkeepers along the line, they can wave their arms above their heads and it runs fluidly into your dive animation. We’ve tweaked the shooting model to make it a little bit more realistic and added pad rumble in the preparation of the kick and when the ball hits the woodwork. That’s on PS3 as well.

HEXUS: How have you managed to capture the passion of national rivalries?

Simon We wanted something that worked for everyone, not just the 16 teams who are actually going to Euro, like England. So, we’ve got a meta-game called ‘Battle of the Nations’. When you first start the game we have a video that explains the concept of the game and you’ll be asked to choose which country you want to play for.

HEXUS: There must be so many different calculations going on. How is the points system going to work?

Simon If you’re France and you’re playing Andorra you might only get 150 points for winning that match, but if you’re Andorra playing France you might get 500 points for winning. So people need to think about the challenge they’re taking on because they will want to get the highest score possible for their country, yet still make sure their country beats everyone elses. It avoids the Barcelona syndrome. We’re trying to push the better gamers to take on more of a challenge by playing with the weaker teams and it also allows the weaker players to play with the stronger teams and be in with a chance of winning an online match. (Simon said after the interview that no matter which team you play as during the ‘Battle of the Nations’ mode, the points still go toward the first nation that you choose when you first started up the game)

HEXUS: Hmm, so…if I’ve chosen, say, England and someone else has chosen France, two teams which I guess are pretty close in ranking, but my opponent is a much higher rank than me, winning 100% of his matches to my 10%, will I get more points for beating him?

Simon No, with this it’s just the teams that we take into consideration. It’s like playing poker; you don’t know who is going to turn up in this competition.

HEXUS: There’s a small amount of customization in the game. I like the idea of putting my own name on the back of my shirt. How far do you think customization can go in football games? Do you think they’ll be a time where you’ll use the face-mapping function to put our heads on players, or perhaps in-depth shirt customization or branded products?

Simon Customisation is definitely a direction we want to go in the future. Since we began on this ‘Be A Pro’ journey we’ve had this aim of, by 2010 world cup, it would be fantastic if we could get 22 of the best English guys, French guys etc, and send them over the South Africa so they play their world cup at the same time as the actual one with 10 players on each team. To do that you want the player to be you, and want the best possible way to create a player that looks like you. Why shouldn’t sport’s companies, like Adidas, approach you if you’re one of the great English gamers, and say we’d like you to wear our special boots in this game.

HEXUS: Can you clear up the confusion behind the game engine for UEFA Euro 08. Is it basically FIFA 08.2, or is it a new game engine?

Simon I’ve read so many times on forums that a different team makes FIFA and Euro, but that’s only in terms of the menus, the game modes, the presentation and the rendering. Gameplay is just one thing. So they finish FIFA 08, draw a line in the sand and then start working on Euro. Finish Euro, draw a line in the sand and then work on FIFA. It’s not quite that straightforward because we need to get FIFA underway quite early, but essentially we build on top of FIFA and then FIFA builds on top of Euro.

HEXUS: The word ‘innovative’ is used in almost every press release for every new game, including your own. What redeeming feature makes UEFA 2008 innovative?

Simon ‘Battle of the Nations’ is probably the most innovative feature. We’ve never done such a social competition before and sitting here now I can tell you that we don’t know what’s going to happen. Of the 53 nations in the tournament, we don’t know how many of those are actually going to get represented in the game. You can’t buy a next-gen console in Azerbaijan, but I’m sure there are players based in Paris, Berlin etc who will represent that country. It might even get to the point where someone signs up for a new account, just to play as a country that has got no-one playing for it, we just don’t know.

HEXUS: If the powers that be told you that you were limited to creating a game for only one platform and the choice was yours. Which platform would you develop for and why?

Simon Oh come on, I cannot answer that question.

My initial reaction to UEFA Euro 2008 based on some hands-on time is extremely positive. I’m reserving judgment though until I’ve played it in some depth. I have the review code now, so expect a review next week.